Seismic setbacks: 3 Severance families say living next to oil and gas is a teeth-chattering experience

Jan. 13, 2013

From left, neighbors Lori Lindholm, Rollen Williams and Susan Bailey stand in Lindhom's backyard in front of an oil and gas separator in Severance on Friday. The neighbors complain of headaches and shaking the oil processing equipment makes since it was installed near their homes about a year ago. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

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How close can an oil well come to your home or school?

A setback is the distance from a home or other building an oil and gas company can drill a well or place any of its associated equipment. The old setback: 350 feet or 150 feet

Today, the setback in a densely populated area is 350 feet, and 150 feet in a rural area. The new setback: 500 feet

To address public concern about the possible public health effects of oil and gas wells being drilled within 350 feet of homes and schools, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has increased the setback to 500 feet statewide. A company cannot drill within 1,000 feet of a school or hospital without commission approval and a public hearing. The loopholes

The commission created several ways for companies to drill within 500 feet of a building, some of which include: • In an urban area, an energy company must obtain a signed waiver from every building owner within 500 feet of a planned oil and gas site, and the company would be required to commit to minimize public health hazards of drilling so close to buildings. If the building owners don’t sign the waiver, the company can seek a variance from state oil and gas commissioners. • The state could grant permission for a company to drill at an existing oil and gas location within 500 feet of a building the state believes it’s technically or economically impractical for the company to drill elsewhere. • Oil and gas wells could be drilled within the setback if they’re part of a “comprehensive drilling plan,” which would require local government approval. What’s next

During a three-day hearing last week about new groundwater quality testing rules for oil and gas wells and new setback regulations, oil and gas commissioners approved the groundwater testing rules Monday. On Wednesday they took only a “straw poll” vote on the setback regulations, signifying that the commissioners plan to adopt the new 500-foot rule. A final vote is expected within two weeks after the language of the rule is finalized and a date is set for the when the new setback will take effect.

Setbacks target Fort Collins oil field Fort Collins’ temporary moratorium on oil and gas drilling within the city has prevented Black Diamond Minerals and its subsidiary, Prospect Energy, from drilling up to six wells within the city and selling off its entire field to a different company, Black Diamond CEO Scott Hall told state oil and gas commissioners on Monday. Hall said Friday that Prospect supports a 350-foot statewide setback between oil and gas wells and buildings, “not because of any health concerns, but to reassure the public and balance other stakeholders.” Prospect also wants existing oil and gas well locations exempted from new setback rules, which directly affects future oil production in Fort Collins, where homes exist within 150 feet from oil and gas wells. “Prospect Energy believes there is a line between the health, safety and welfare of the public and a ‘taking’ of private property mineral rights by those who just do not like oil and gas operations,” Hall said. If cities allow new homes to be built within 150 feet of an existing well, “why would they insist that new oil and gas development encroaching on urban areas be any different?” he said. “Safety issues are the same.” Halting oil and gas drilling and fracking would devastate the economy and prevent a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by stopping electric utilities’ ongoing switch from coal plants to those powered by natural gas, Hall said. — Bobby Magill

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SEVERANCE — After fracking came to Severance, the peace and quiet of the plains was replaced with a major headache.

Carla and Rollen Williams moved into their Fox Ridge home just north of East Harmony Road nine years ago, when the stillness and vast open spaces were major selling points for living about 7 miles east of Fort Collins.

But Fox Ridge’s peace and quiet ended last year after Great Western Oil and Gas drilled several oil and gas wells on farmland adjacent to the neighborhood and placed a battery of tanks and other processing equipment about 350 feet from the Williams’ home.

Almost every day and late into the night, the walls shook. Light fixtures swayed. Picture frames rattled.

“It’s as if some machine is tunneling under your house,” Carla Williams said. “You feel this deep vibration come up from underneath the house and then things start shaking.”

There were strange odors, too — smells like food was rotting in the fridge, but no source of the stink could be found inside the house, she said.

Her neighbor, Re/Max Alliance real estate agent Lori Lindholm, also saw her walls vibrating, and her husband, Len, started getting headaches shortly after Great Western’s wells started producing.

“We’ve got some serious vibration going on in our house,” she said. “It’s like having mini-earthquakes going on. Essentially, over time, that’s going cause damage to our homes.”

When the state shut down the wells for a few days about two weeks ago, the problems disappeared. But for the families living by the well, frustration and uncertainty about the safety of Great Western’s operation remain.

A question of distance

The Williamses and Lindholms are Northern Colorado’s face of the statewide struggle over how far from homes and schools oil and gas wells and all their related equipment should be placed. That distance is called a “setback,” one of Colorado’s most controversial environmental and public health issues of the last year.

It’s stories like theirs that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, or COGCC, heard from residents of the state’s oil and gas fields last week as commissioners deliberated whether to increase the current setbacks.

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Today, oil and gas companies are allowed to drill and frack oil and gas wells and place related equipment no closer than 350 feet from homes in densely populated areas. In rural areas, the setback is 150 feet.

When commissioners give their final blessing in the coming weeks, new rules are expected to expand both setbacks to 500 feet, though there are many loopholes and exceptions.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, filed documents with the commission during the setback rulemaking process denying the legitimacy of residents’ concerns.

Residents’ fears about the health risk of living close to oil and gas activity has no basis in science, COGA claimed. There are no data showing oil and gas production can harm people, the group said, adding that increased setbacks are much too restrictive.

But those living close to problematic wells say their shaking walls and aching heads tell them something is awry.

“It was a totally different ballgame when they were doing it really out in open spaces when they weren’t in people’s backyards,” said the Williamses’ neighbor, Colorado State University environmental sciences professor Susan Bailey. “Nobody really knows what the health effects are. What is that shaking about? What is it going to do to homes? Who knows?”

The new 500-foot setbacks won’t mean anything to people already living close to oil and gas operations because the rule change will apply only to new oil and gas activity.

That means residents living next to existing wells will have to work with the industry and the state to win back their peace and quiet — something Fox Ridge residents have been doing for five months.

A major investigation

Great Western was quite a disturbing neighbor, state records show.

State public health and oil and gas regulators have been tailing Great Western since Fox Ridge residents started complaining about the noise, stench and vibrations at the tank battery behind their homes last summer.

In October, the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division launched an investigation into the Great Western wells for possible emissions violations. It denied the Coloradoan’s state open records request for documents regarding the alleged violations because the division’s investigation is ongoing.

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“We are not able to discuss the nature of the investigation at this time,” spokesman Christopher Dann said Thursday.

A log of related documents shows that the APCD was prepared to require Great Western to pay a civil penalty for possible emissions violations at its Fox Ridge wells, but a settlement agreement between the company and the state is pending, awaiting the final outcome of the APCD investigation.

Responding to complaints from Bailey and Carla Williams, Colorado oil and gas regulators have found numerous problems with the Great Western wells.

COGCC inspection forms show that valves on Great Western’s oil and gas separators were unable to control tank pressure without releasing gases into the air. The wellheads and the tank battery had missing or mislabled identification signs, including missing emergency contact information.

Operational problems with both the oil and gas separator and emissions burner at the tank battery were causing a constant noise, which a COGCC inspector measured at 68 decibels — nearly as loud as a home vacuum cleaner or hair dryer — from 200 feet away, just behind the Fox Ridge homes.

Lindholm said a Great Western official promised in early December to call her with an update on how the company will help reduce noise and vibrations, but her numerous requests for a follow-up have gone unanswered.

Great Western owner Sean Broe said Thursday via a public relations firm that the company has taken extensive noise-dampening measures at the tank battery, installed new signs, erected a metal fence around the noisy equipment and restricted the wells’ operations to daylight hours only.

“While we proactively make every effort to avoid these instances, they do occur,” Broe said. “And when they do, it is our policy to respond as quickly as possible to remedy the situation.”

But Bailey, Lindholm and Carla Williams said Saturday Great Western’s efforts haven’t worked. The noise and the vibrations continue.

“Now it just sounds like there’s a diesel truck running all the time down there and you hear the squeak (like a truck’s air breaks),” Bailey’s son Matt Bailey said Saturday.

“If it’s shaking our houses, what is that going to do to them?” Susan Bailey asked. “If there is damage, or if that thing blows up, who’s responsible? Who’s going to replace or fix homes? Is it Great Western? Or if somebody gets sick, are they responsible for those health effects?”